Highest Award Girl Scouts

Abigail
 Recycle Remix: Implementing Mixed Recycling in Canyons School District

Abigail educated students, faculty, and staff in the Canyons School district about the importance of recycling and how to correctly recycle paper, plastic, and aluminum. She delivered the information via social media, a website, video, and posters displayed throughout the schools.

A five-month pilot program at Midvalley Elementary, Midvale Middle, and Hillcrest High proved effective at each school and lead to a meeting with district officials. Abigail presented a plan to implement mixed recycling at all schools in the Canyons District that was approved; the district had a new contract written up with the recycling companies. Now each school in Canyons, which includes more than 50 schools, 2,000 employees, and 34,000 students, will participate in mixed recycling.

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Arianna
Increasing Monarch Butterfly Habitat & Awareness

To support Monarch butterflies in Utah, Arianna built a website with free educational resources for teachers and the general public. She met with teachers, created coloring sheets, developed lesson plans, and researched and sorted resources for the website.

Noting there weren’t many resources specific to the state, Arianna made sure to include a Utah focus in the lessons so teachers could provide a local tie for students in an effort to support Monarch habitats. Arianna also worked with professionals in the Monarch research field and sourced a free milkweed seed provider to further support the project and the local butterfly populations.

While Arianna met and overcame setbacks with her project, she’s very happy with the end product, especially given her love of STEM and animals. She also learned how to be a leader and work with a team in the process.

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Christine
Passion into Action - Early Career Development

In an effort to reduce student stress during college application and job interview processes, Christine created a guide to help students of all ages identify their passions early. She researched and developed practical tools, including a timeline and suggestions for summer activities and extracurricular clubs and organizations.

Christine also contributed to a career clothing drive for students, communicated with hundreds of students, and inspired teachers and counselors. She even got administrators to incorporate project ideas that would give students a head start in career planning.

Through her Gold Award project, Christine learned to communicate with adults in different leadership positions and discovered the value in being respectful. Thanks to her hard work, students now have better tools to identify their passions, direct their patch, and be more prepared for their futures.

Destinee
B.O.O.M. (Bang Out Our Music)

Destinee created B.O.O.M. (Bang Out Our Music) pipes for elementary music teachers from 3-4” PVC pipes. She cut, sanded, tuned, and added caps to the ends to create the musical pipes.

For supplies, Destinee asked various plumbing and hardware stores for donations and then requested donations from the community for a garage sale to raise additional funds. Though she met her fundraising goal, the caps needed to finish the project were on backorder and took months to arrive. Plus, each pipe had to be tuned accurately and sanded down to ensure the correct note.

Destinee took the delay and tuning issues in stride, working on her patience in the process. Once all supplies were ready, she was able to build, deliver, and teach the elementary students and music teachers how to use the pipes.

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Emily
Preventing Pets from Dying of Smoke Inhalation

With her Gold Award project, Emily sought to educate pet owners about fire safety with a handout and short animated video. She partnered with the Draper Fire Station to provide her video for station tours and O2 masks from Project Breathe for pets. With proper equipment, firefighters can get faster care to those pets who’ve inhaled smoke.

Emily also worked with various pet-centered businesses that'll print and continuously distribute the flyer to customers. By educating pet owners, they’ll be more cautious of fire hazards and make more informed decisions.

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Erin
Increasing Pedestrian Safety

Erin and her mom noticed a roundabout with dangerous crosswalks when they first moved to their town. The intersection has poor visibility and often has traffic, accidents, and near-accidents occur. Plus, the town is frequented by tourists who may not know how to properly use the roundabout or who must use the crosswalks to reach the transit center.

Erin worked closely with the county government to install flashing crosswalk beacons at two of the crosswalks that connect Walmart and the transit center. She put out several surveys and petitions to involve the community, completed two radio interviews, and presented to the county council, which provided full support and funding for the project. 

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Katelynn
Flag Rescue

Katelynn noticed a lack of knowledge and resources around the American flag regarding care and retirement of old flags, so she hosted multiple events to teach flag code and when to retire a flag. Katelynn built a website to distribute this information online and created a pledge for people to sign after learning about flag retirement and care. In the pledge, signers agree to continue to care for and respect the flag and retire it when the time comes.

In an effort to provide resources for retiring flags, Katelynn coordinated with local cities and business to install Flag Retirement Boxes. These boxes allow members of the community to drop off flags that need to be retired, and local troops and the American Legion will take care of retiring each one properly. Through her project, Katelynn improved her communication skills and learned that she can make an impact.

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Mabelle
You and Voting

After feeling anger, fear, and hopelessness when catching up on the news in recent years, Mabelle decided to take action to become empowered and feel like her voice mattered. She created a website full of voter education resources, instructions on voter registration, as well as information on the system of voting in Utah and the U.S. Her goal is to provide young people encouragement for the future and resources to make a difference in their communities.

Mabelle collaborated with experts in Social Studies and Civic Engagement to create educational podcasts for her website. Notably, her project gained recognition, reaching Social Studies educators statewide through the Utah Board of Education newsletter. Beyond statistics and outreach, Mabelle's profound achievement lies in personal connections—engaging high schoolers and young adults, emphasizing their voices and potential for community impact.

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Samantha
Adopt-a-Grave

Samantha comes from a military family: mom served in the Army and grandpa in the Air Force. After attending Wreaths Across America events at the Fort Douglas cemetery each winter since she was a Brownie, Samantha decided to connect with and honor those resting in the cemetery beyond the annual visits.

For several weeks, Samantha brought volunteers together to lay flowers on graves and learn more about the person they were honoring. What started as an effort to raise awareness about the cemetery turned into a way to connect with the soldiers and supporters who served their country. Samantha used social media and worked with volunteers, donors, and museum staff to raise awareness and support connection.

Shayla
Power off - Fun on!

Shayla created a program and hosted 20 related minicamps in an effort to get kids off screens during summer break. The program teaches kids skills they can use throughout summer and, hopefully, their lives. The classes included chalk art, rock painting, sketching, embroidery, solo D&D, card games, cardboard crafts, clay creations, friendship bracelets, and mosaic art. Shayla received hundreds of donations from her community, which were put into kits for participants to take home.

Shayla also created a website for kids who couldn't attend her classes in person and for those who need a quick refresher on a skill. The website is unique in that the videos are programmed to stop after each video (with no ads) so that kids don't spend more time online going down YouTube rabbit holes. At the end of each video, Shayla encourages them to get off the computer and go practice their new skills. Shayla was recognized by the Spanish Fork City Council for running this program and making a significant difference in her community.

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Alli's project “Safe Haven" created a relaxing area for those brought to the Children’s Justice Center to read, draw, or sit before interviews. The Children's Justice Center is dedicated to solving family-related problems, and Alli’s safe haven area offers a bright spot during an often frightening time. After learning so much about the Children’s Justice Center, she found ways to inform the community as well via interviews with KPCW radio and TownLift Paper.

After painting the furniture and organizing the donated books, including coloring books, the “Safe Haven” area was ready to launch. Alli held a grand opening event that about 30 people attended. She also assisted in providing tours so those folks could learn about the Children’s Justice Center and her newly created area. Alli said the project was the perfect outlet because she’s always felt a connection with community service and helping others.

Eliza started “Together We Grow” after learning about Live Empowered, an organization that supports disabled adults with work and social experiences suited to their abilities. Live Empowered previously had an underutilized backyard with unlevel dirt, rocks, and weeds. Due to the state of the yard, BBQs were held in the parking lot, which was neither spacious nor convenient. Eliza set a goal to build a safe backyard and increase community awareness. Now, clients at Live Empowered have an outdoor space better suited to them and a youth group committed to coming every year.
Lacey founded EntreprenHER, a club centered around young women wanting to get into entrepreneurship. It is meant to cultivate a safe space where like-minded young women can interact and encourage each other to reach their full potential. EntreprenHER  invites women-led businesses to speak with the club members about their business and the process of getting it going. This helps formulate ideas and get into the grit of what being a woman in business is like. This was an important project to Lacey because she feels it is important to support and provide resources for women to go into business. The speaker and club are displayed on a website  that club members help put together. 

Lanie got the idea for her project “Wildlife Water Reservoir” after noticing erosion and lack of water creating problems for wildlife in her community. The erosion decreases the native plants, so wildlife must cross streets to find water and often end up getting hit. Lanie worked with Summit Land Conservancy and several volunteers on the project. With materials donated by Park City Municipal, they worked together to build several rock structures that will prevent the soil from eroding away and allow pools of water to last longer into the dry season.

Through her project, Lanie was able to reduce erosion and retain water longer, as well as inform the community so other people can build the same structures in the future. Lanie learned that if you want to change something, you just have to take action. 

Project Links
KPCW Radio Interview
Project Website

In the fall of 2020, a member of Relena’s color guard team got a concussion that wasn’t immediately recognized. Her teammate ended up missing several weeks of school and could not participate in color guard for over a year. Relena recognized the gap in knowledge among her team and wondered if other teams had the same issue. So, she started her project “Concussions in Color Guard” to educate others about concussions and their symptoms. Relena put out a survey to gather data and then contacted organizations overseeing color guard and reached out to nearly every color guard in Utah. Many teams submitted pledges to concussion safety. Her website “How to Color Guard”  features resources about concussions and concussion safety for color guard teams and the public to reference. 

Savannah sewed and donated 500 medical play dolls to Primary Children’s hospital as part of her project “Surgery Sammys.” She was inspired to do the project because of the fear experienced by her young cousin prior to a minor surgery. Doctors and nurses can demonstrate the procedure on the dolls, and the child can dress up and draw on the doll’s face.

All of Savannah’s supplies were donated from Westgate Park City, including sheets to make the body, thread, and support. The polyfill and fun fabric for the gowns were donated by other Girl Scout Troops and local organizations. Savannah created the website “How to Sew Medical Play Dolls” with directions so others can make their own dolls and even the names and contacts at hospitals in the western United States. She also took her project to the Home Economics teacher at Treasure Mountain Junior High in Park City, who added the Medical Play Dolls to her curriculum. The dolls will be made and donated twice a year as each semester ends. 

When Tanya’s family moved into their new home, they discovered elevated radon levels, sparking her work on “Project Radon.” She started with a survey study on radon awareness of Salt Lake County residents in her sophomore-year AP Environmental Science class. From there, Tanya developed interventions to increase radon awareness with expert help: hosted 15 community events, taught 500 elementary students, and created a website to report radon risks by zip code. She also learned to scale up, creating a lesson plan for 300 STEM teachers and bridging the state of Utah with local firms to enhance free radon testing and consultation. 

Community recognition amplified Tanya’s efforts. The Murray City Council streamed her campaign online, then it was publicized in Murray Journal, and now Tanya is an invited speaker at the 2022 International Radon Symposium in Seattle.

Project Links
 Initial Research Findings (Word document)
City Council Presentation (YouTube)
Radon Presentation (PPT)
Radon Article (Word document)
Kode with Klossy Coding Summer Camp PPT 1
Kode with Klossy Coding Summer Camp PPT 2

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